When life hands you lemons.

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Do you ever have a day when it seems that everything is determined to go wrong and you feel like you're sailing down poop-creek with a dodgy tiller?

I had a day like that today.

I've got a large day-job project on the go and the little ladies (2 and 4) were absolutely bonkers all day. Although the eldest one was in nursery all morning, I can't say I noticed the difference as the youngest put in extra effort in her absence to drive me up the wall.

How is it possible for such a little body to drink so much juice? She'd drain one cup and just as I was getting back into the work flow, she'd demand another. I suppose it serves me right for not giving her more attention. :)

By the time they were in bed, I felt pretty exhausted and a little disheartened about what I'd achieved and it's moments like this that help me appreciate the power of a good note book.

After searching through my work notebook to find a page they hadn't drawn on today, I found a blank page and listed the following:

  • Things I'm thankful for today
  • Things I actually achieved

By listing the things that I'm grateful for, it enabled me to enter a positive mental space and actually view the day for what it was so that I was then able to recognize what I'd achieved.

I'll add a photograph of my what I wrote at the end of this post, so you can see what I mean.

Motivational tank

I've come to think of my motivation as being like a storage tank that when full, has its needle pointing to, "let's do this". When it's getting near empty, the needle is pointing to, "Can't be bothered".

Throughout the day, every time life becomes challenging, it drains some of that tank and I can literally feel my motivation dropping until eventually it becomes a real effort just to do anything and the remainder of the day feels like walking through mud.

Hard-wired to the negative

The trouble with the human mind is that it's actually wired to focus on negative stimuli. Call it a survival trait, if you will. Way back in our evolutionary history, when we were dodging sabre-toothed tiger bites and watching out for rock-falls in our cozy caves, it was pretty important to notice anything in the slightest bit wrong.

The trouble is, now we live in safer times, we're still hard-wired to notice the negative. We've evolved faster than our brains could keep up with and so now we notice that we've lost mobile reception with the same sense of alarm that our ancient ancestors would have ascribed to a woolly mammoth running towards their camp.

Fortunately, it's possible to do a little rewiring under the hood, if we're smart about it.

We can counter the negative with acts of positivity or, in the case of my written exercise, by remembering the positive moments that actually happened that my gloomy gray matter failed to notice.

Wealthy Affiliate goals are positivity fodder

Some things that I achieved today were related to my WA goals.

I settled on the branding for my Bootcamp site, I wrote a 1,200 word post for the Bootcamp site, and I finalized the designs for the social media images I'd be using to promote each post on that site.

That was a huge win for me because I've been trying to get that settled for about two weeks. Did my brain see it that way. No, it did not. Instead, it was more interested in scraping mushed up baked beans out of the carpet. :)

Attitude determines altitude

Okay, I'll admit, I detest that phrase. I always have as it just sounds so... sales-conferency.

Its true though. We can, to a lesser or greater degree, manipulate how happy our brains are telling us that we are by using exercises to compensate for our innate tendencies.

That's where modern techniques such as neural linguistic programming and cognitive behavioral therapy come in, helping us to find ways to cope with the out-of-date operating systems in our heads.

By forcing myself to look at what I have to be thankful for and then recognize what I've achieved puts all the trivial negative events of my day into perspective. Now, I feel more focused and excited about the day again, even though it's pretty much over.

I certainly wouldn't have been able to write this blog post a few hours ago! :)


Here's the page I was talking about. Excuse the handwriting.


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Recent Comments

11

The hugs always used to recharge my 'battery' when I had children and young people at home. The giggles and the laughter were the absolute best! Those should always be the highlights of your days.

You actually were pretty productive in spite of the interruptions. Not a bad day on the overall, from my perspective.

I have a spoiled little dog that has to be in my lap, being held in my arm or let outside every 10 minutes of every day. She demands my attention in other ways as well. It is a wonder that I ever get anything accomplished. LOL. :)

Enjoy these days, Phil, for they will all too soon pass into memories.

Candice

You make make some very good points that I agree with. However, there are some opinions of yours that 70 years of "living" don't support or agree with.

The world would be a wonderful place for ALL of us IF all it took in life to achieve our goals and dreams was a good or great attitude. Unfortunately, as you yourself pointed out, life doesn't give a damn or cooperate with us no matter how positive or great our attitude is! Every person also has their limits and sometimes choose to not get up right away to try again when they're knocked down HARD.

Craig

That's awesome. I love thankful List. It's so important to be grateful. You achieve so much more that way. Thank you for sharing what was on your mind.

Michele

Hi Phil,
Sounds as if you were productive for the day.
Every day without a major mishap is a wonderful day.
Wishing all the Fathers a Happy Fathers day. I may get
3 calls. What ever I get is welcome.
James

Sounds like a great day in the end!

Hi Phil

That sounds like an extremely productive day to me!

Best Wishes
Hazel

Hi Phil Two daughters are a blessing, make the most of the time as they grow up all too quickly, Best Alan

Great post! The older they get it more complicated they become. Sounds like you are doing a wonderful job. Have a Happy Fathers Day.
Sandy

A spoon full of sugar and it goes down well!

Enjoyed your post so much! The next time I have a challenging day, I'm going to write the same list and remind myself of the good things for that day.

Janelle

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